Video

General Strategy

This is all noted in the video above. For those who prefer a text format, this strategy section deals with trash mobs, minibosses, and the four bosses of the instance. You can also see the Dungeon Journal below.

Casters periodically summon a pool of purple smoke on the ground which will silence anyone in it, or anyone who moves into it. These persist until the caster is dead, so CC or focus down casters to avoid excessive pools.

Some melee will periodically use a chain grapple to pull players toward them. This cannot be avoided but alone does negligible damage.

Some melee will periodically cleave with a smoke effect on the ground. This does very high damage, with scaled ilvl of 500 it was taking away about 60% health in build 18379

There are several patrols, particularly in the area prior to Rolltall's bridge. Try to fight mobs where they stood to avoid the patrols, and stay aware - an unmanaged overpull could cause a wipe, especially at a 500 ilvl.

Use CC. While you will be able to muscle through, especially on better geared characters, using CC will make the run smoother.

There are two minibosses, a boar boss and Slagna, a miniature Magmaw.

Boar Boss: He does a Horridon-style double swipe, hitting a cone in front of his head and tail. He will not follow the tank while he does it. Avoid this.

Slagna: Conjures pools of lava. Don't stand in them

Interrupt the summoned elementals' Firestorms

DPS the elementals down quickly. They have relatively low health pools.

Don't stand in the fire

Dispel debuffs as regularly as possible, particularly from melee and tanks as they spread.

Avoid standing in the two Smash abilities which have obvious smoke effects on the floor

Don't stand in the ground effects

Interrupt Ferocious Yell

Miners cannot be taunted, they need to be DPS'd down. Bringing them to melee can help.

Miners will try to attack targets the boss has leapt on.

There are friendly miners, but it's not obvious which they are. Don't worry too much about healing them, you don't need them to down the boss.

Look at Rolltall's end of the bridge to see where the rolling boulders will spawn. Avoid them while you can, they do a fair amount of damage and a 1-second stun

During his wind blast, you can cast while being blown along the bridge if you don't run into the wind.

Because of the wind blast, it's helpful to your healer if you try to stay grouped

He will summon fire, coating parts of the bridge until the fight ends. It is not possible to position this as it is not cast on players.

The fire does a lot of damage, try to dodge it during the wind blast.

The boulders will often fill the fire-free areas. Pick between the two, do not get hit by both! In alpha, the fire seemed to do more damage than the boulders, but the tooltips indicate the opposite is true.

This fight has a soft enrage as the bridge will become completely covered in fire.

Don't fall off the bridge!

Interrupt Molten Blast at every opportunity. Doing this effectively removes two high-damage abilities from the fight, making it far easier.

If interrupting fails, healers with an offensive dispel (priests, shaman), Mages and Prot Warriors can remove the buff.

The summoned elementals need to be DPS'd down before the reach the kilns their beams are leading to. Use roots, snares and stuns to ensure they are killed in time.

There will be an increasing amount of fire on the floor. Don't stand in it. Each pool will last for 2 minutes

Because of the elementals and the fire, it may be best, depending on your comp, for ranged DPS to deal with the elementals while melee focus the boss.

Ensure you remain in range of your healer wherever possible. It's easy to get very spread out in this fight.

Dungeon Journal

Overview
– Forgemaster Gog'duh hurls two greater elementals at the party in an attempt to buy time. Once the Forgemaster is brought low on health, Magmolatus will escape from the furnace and engage the party. Magmolatus will periodically call in Molten Elementals to assist him.

Overview
– Slave Watcher Crushto attacks the party with a series of physical and earthen abilities. He will periodically call in Captured Slaves to fight for him. Some especially daring slaves might turn against him!

Overview
– Roltall summons a series of Fiery Boulders that roll down the narrow bridge, damaging all enemies in their path.After the Fiery Boulders, he calls a Heat Wave to damage all players and push them down the bridge.Finally, he throws Burning Slag that ignites the bridge for the remainder of the fight.

Frostfire Ridge Vignettes

Last week, we posted about many rare spawns and exploration details, including the frozen remains of a Young Orc Woman who died holding a love letter and memento, the Frostwolf First-Fang. We recently found the fate of the man she was waiting for, the Young Orc Traveler.

When you approach him, the following description pops up:

<A lone orc traveler lies dead in the snow, apparently overwhelmed by ravenous tundra wolves. Judging by his gear, he was prepared for a long journey through harsh conditions.

Tucked into the front of his robe is a scroll bound in leather laces, with a furry trinket dangling from one end.>

I was so happy to find your note, I had to bite my knuckle to keep from yelling and waking up the other trappers.

Of course I remember that day! You and Longhowl prowling the flats, looking so fierce. My unsteady aim, that pitiful throw. Can you believe we almost killed each other? Now I want nothing more than to live beside you for all my days.

I know a place. North across the flats, behind the volcano overlooking Grombolash. I will leave bones to mark the way. Come find me, and we can be free together.

Yours forever,

Magra

P.S. I will keep Longhowl's fang safe. Attached is my own good luck charm - the foot from my first successful snare. Bring it safely to me, or I will gut you like a hare!

In addition, we found Jehil the Climber, who drops Jehil's Climbin' Boots and is accessible via a jumping game! He's on the roof of a questing area, which requires you to climb a large mountain, jump down onto the roof which has large separated bones, and jump between the bones until you reach the roof's tarp.

Comments

Comment by Lupin3rd

on 2014-06-18T14:50:51-05:00

/drooling so much

Comment by hornet29

on 2014-06-18T15:01:54-05:00

Somehow that dungeon reminded me of Cataclysm launch period, when we spent hours and hours in a dungeon just because not everyone really understood how to deal with certain fight mechanics. Seems to me those long hours of dungeon-wiping will come back with WoD :) Looking forward to that, for some reason.

Comment by jonp270

on 2014-06-18T15:37:59-05:00

So far liking the way the new dungeon works. though i do hope they change the boulder to be the bigger damage vs the fire.

Comment by oliviadgrace

on 2014-06-18T16:30:16-05:00

So far liking the way the new dungeon works. though i do hope they change the boulder to be the bigger damage vs the fire.

It appears to be that way from the tooltips, but that could be in error - the fire seemed way more problematic in my runs! :) I agree though, the boulder should be the #1 thing to avoid.

Comment by Rankkor

on 2014-06-18T17:06:18-05:00

That orc love story........

The feels D=

Comment by cephadex

on 2014-06-18T18:08:05-05:00

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm hoping for upgraded models of lootable ogre loincloths.

Comment by GaaraFredNorris

on 2014-06-18T18:11:36-05:00

This only makes me want WoD even more. I hope dungeons where you actually have to pay attention become the norm once more such as in Pre-nerf Cata. Look forward to running the Slag Mines as a shammy.

>_> <_< Now if we can just get mobs with elemental resistances again...

Comment by Raynre

on 2014-06-19T00:42:26-05:00

Early Cata dungeons and Ulduar-esque raids are at the top of my wish-list. Good news on this front!

Comment by extroletje

on 2014-06-19T02:41:47-05:00

The setting of the dungeon looks nice. The design of the bosses, some looks great others not so. But that is just mine opinion. Nevertheless I'm looking forward to give this one a shot.

Comment by sykopat

on 2014-06-19T06:44:20-05:00

Really looking forward to WoD, but I'm trying to skip as much as possible of the spoilers. I want to leave some surprises to discover in my travels. :)

Comment by wilosoft

on 2014-06-19T07:00:33-05:00

EYECSTACY! that's freaking awesome! but please next time show us the drops :) great vid!

Comment by love45acp

on 2014-06-19T07:35:31-05:00

Great video, and thanks for posting. As a healer (disc priest, resto shaman, resto druid and mistweaver), I'm a wee bit concerned with the comment "movement-heavy," particularly since many big heals (disc's level 90 in particular) are receiving a cast time, but it's apparent that the damage wasn't more overwhelming than you could keep up with. At least, with a good tank and DPS, which may not be the case in LFD. :) Here's hoping that healing in 6.0 won't be as disastrous as 4.0.

Comment by oliviadgrace

on 2014-06-19T11:27:54-05:00

Great video, and thanks for posting. As a healer (disc priest, resto shaman, resto druid and mistweaver), I'm a wee bit concerned with the comment "movement-heavy," particularly since many big heals (disc's level 90 in particular) are receiving a cast time, but it's apparent that the damage wasn't more overwhelming than you could keep up with. At least, with a good tank and DPS, which may not be the case in LFD. :) Here's hoping that healing in 6.0 won't be as disastrous as 4.0.

Thanks, glad you liked it!

Definitely a valid concern! I play resto shaman and disc priest myself, although I can't comment on the monk or druid, and both felt manageable, with a good group. A group that was failing at mechanics is a lot trickier to heal, but given that the mechanics are mostly "don't stand in the bad" it shouldn't be a high bar to reach. I definitely missed being able to constantly interrupt the final boss when doing this as disc, though.

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